[September 2000 journal entry]
My artist friend Dean recently described an experience that led me to think afresh about the way narratives form and are shared relative to the perspective of the storyteller. Very early one morning, Dean – in his pajamas and robe – let Lady (his black Lab) outside through the front door. Dean was standing on the front porch when he saw Lady dashing away from the house. Dean began shouting over and over, “Lady, you come here! Come here right now!” Then he noticed on the street in front of his house an older woman out for an early morning walk. She froze. Then she turned and fled. Dean had no chance then or later to correct her frightened interpretation. Dean’s narration and her narration of this shared experience are surely different.
